Gloria Steinem: The start of Ms. Magazine

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 2 December 2024

⏱️ 11 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In 1972, feminist campaigner Gloria Steinem co-founded the first magazine in the US which was owned, run and written by women.

Called Ms. Magazine, it covered issues including equal rights, abortion and domestic violence. The glossy covers helped bring feminism into the mainstream.

In 2022, Gloria Steinem told Louise Hidalgo that it's one of the projects of which she's most proud.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Gloria Steinem at the office of Ms. Magazine. Credit: PL Gould/IMAGES/Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:34.9	check out BBC Sounds.
0:46.9	Hello, you're listening to the Witness History podcast from the BBC World Service.
0:55.7	This week in partnership with the BBC 100 Women's season, we're bringing you stories about inspiring and influential women from around the world. Today, we're going back to 1972 and the launch of the first magazine in the US to be
1:02.6	owned, run and written by women. Called Ms. Magazine, it covered issues such as equal rights, abortion
1:10.2	and domestic violence in a way that no other magazine had before.
1:15.5	Co-founder, Gloria Steinem, spoke to Louise Hidalgo in 2022.
1:20.9	This is no simple reform. It really is a revolution.
1:26.4	Gloria Steinem already by the early 70s
1:28.5	was one of the most well-known faces of American feminism.
1:32.2	Articulate, fearless, she'd made her name as a journalist, famously,
1:35.9	going undercover to expose what it was like to work as a woman at a Playboy nightclub.
1:40.7	And she'd helped launch a new national movement
1:43.1	to get more women into politics
1:45.0	with a now famous speech. Sex and race, because they are easy, visible differences,
1:52.1	have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups.
1:58.2	Born out of the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s, the women's movement was
	...

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